Did you follow this? I must admit I came rather late to it but I find the result interesting. The motion was "This house believes that biotechnology and sustainable agriculture are complementary, not contradictory". It was defeated 62% to 38% and, judging from my, admittedly hasty, scan of comments the main reason was that 'biotechnology' was translated by many as 'GM'. This appears to have really polarised things. Fun and games with the Economist's servers are worth reading about, too.
If my assumption of polarisation is, indeed, a fair assessment then I think it's a pity. As with any technology, there are potentially beneficial applications and other harmful ones. I am all too well aware of the problems that could arise from further promotion of mono-cultures by the development of, say, herbicide resistant strains. However, with an ever growing global population there is a crying need for yield improvement and biotechnological techniques have their place.
Parenthetically, isn't it interesting how technology is the only 'ology' (as Beattie would say) whose meaning has moved away from 'the study of' and now actually refers to the equipment and techniques that arise from application of that study?
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